The present invention relates to steam dryers, and more particularly, to steam dryers as contained in moisture separator reheaters.
Moisture separator reheaters (MSR) are an important part of commercial nuclear power plants that use light water nuclear reactors. In these types of power plants, saturated steam is produced at relatively low pressures which, if allowed to expand continuously through the turbine, would exhaust at 20-24% moisture. This excessive moisture would impair the efficiency of the turbine blades and cause them to erode at a rapid rate. Moisture separator heaters are provided to remove the moisture from and then super heat high pressure turbine exhaust steam, for use in subsequent turbine stages.
Conventional MSR's are of two general types, those utilizing a moisture separator mesh, and those utilizing chevrons or similar flow deflection devices. In both types of conventional MSR's, a significant portion of the demoisturized, "dry" steam is exposed to "wet" steam before the dry steam enters the reheater tube bundle area. This reduces overall MSR efficiency.